vreun

Forms

vreun m or n (singular only, feminine vreo)^[1] vrun: „Se dea vrun omu spre perire” “to give up any man to destruction” (Acts 25:16, Codicele Voronețean).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is probably inherited from Vulgar Latin *vēre-ūnus (“truly one”), a group of Latin vērē (“truly”) and ūnus (“one”).^[4][5][2][1] Ciorănescu, after Salvioni, Tiktin and the REW, takes the first part, the particle vre-, from the Latin adverb, and compares Italian veruno.^[6][7] For the Italian word Salvioni pointed to Latin contexts where the phrase meant “not a single one”.^[8] Wiktionary calls the origin uncertain.^[1]

Other scholars started from vel (“or”) instead: Capidan from a group of it with “one”, which Ciorănescu calls uncertain, and Pascu from velis.^[6][9] Șăineanu also gave the group with “or”.^[10]

The particle lives on in Aromanian vãrnu and Megleno-Romanian vrin.^[6][11][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

DLR's earliest quotations are from the 16th century: vrun om “any man” in a text of about 1550 printed in Hasdeu's Cuvente den bătrâni, and in the Codicele Voronețean.^[2] MDA2 and Tiktin date it to the Codicele Voronețean of about 1563.^[5][3]

Semantic evolution

In the old texts it varies between vreun, vrun, vru and, in the feminine, vreo, vro, vo.^[2][5] It marks a person or thing as indefinite, “some, any”; with a negation or after fără “without” it means “no, none”.^[4][5] Before numerals the feminine vreo became an adverb of approximation, vreo doi “about two”;^[4][6] Ciorănescu notes that the article o spread here to numerals that take no article.^[4][6] The same particle formed vreodată “ever”.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 1550 – vrun om in a text printed in Hasdeu's Cuvente den bătrâni.^[2]
• c. 1563 – vrun in the Codicele Voronețean.^[5][2][3]
• 1589 – vreo in Coresi's Psalter.^[13]
• 1660 – vreo in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[14]

Meanings

Determiner

1. some, any: a person or thing not identified more closely; feminine vreo: Ai vreun prieten acolo?^[4][5][1]
2. In negative sentences, no, not any.^[5]
3. Feminine vreo before a numeral: about, approximately: vreo doi kilometri “about two kilometres”.^[4][5]

Pronoun

1. vreunul, vreuna: someone, anyone; one or other of them.^[4]

Related words

• niciun
• vreodată
• un
• Aromanian vãrnu

Usage notes

Vreo doi (feminine vreo două) means “a few, two or so”.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. vreun
3. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. vre
4. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1209
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1519
6. ^ a b c d e f Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001), p. s.v. vre
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9224
8. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 180
10. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 703
11. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1117
12. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 1078
13. ^ Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 7:3
14. ^ Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. s.v. vreo